The Wolf
by gingerbritishgypsyelf
Summary: Series of drabbles stemming from "His Harsh Mistress" (on Ao3) by lyrangalia, with her permission. Adlock. Werewolf!Sherlock. Rated T for potential smutty chapters later (it really depends).
1. The Rug

The Rug

Sherlock Holmes was becoming accustomed to waking up somewhere in the Adler home. Once the full moon waned, he often found himself covered in mud, sometimes scratched or bleeding, and inevitably famished, usually somewhere in Irene's home. It was not an intentional habit, but the wolf, the damnable wolf that hid in his veins all but the days around the full moon, it liked Ms. Adler more than he cared to admit.

When memories of his lost lupine time returned to him, they were often perched on a fine line between satisfying and embarrassing. He usually tracked down some of Moriarty's web, but he also usually found himself belly-up and whimpering at the hands of Ms. Adler. Despite the fact that he was the wolf, he was the teeth and claws and steel which rose and fell with the moon, she still managed to stand over him, to worm herself into his lupine brain, and irritatingly, she was Alpha.

"You ruined the rug in the sitting room."

The tiles were cold against his skin and he was naked—wolves didn't wear clothes after all—but there she was standing over him in heels and a sheath dress of midnight blue silk.

"May I remind you that I told you the rug was in danger of ruin before the moon was full and you ignored me?"

He opened the fridge and pulled out the remnants of a perfectly-seasoned leg of lamb, taking a bite of it as Irene frowned at him.

"That was going to be dinner tomorrow evening."

"And now it won't."

"You could eat during the full moon, you know. I have been very generous in making sure the wolf has something to eat."

"It's easier to not do so whenever possible. Never know if I'll be shot for raiding a house."

"The rug cost several hundred pounds."

"So purchase a new one."

He resumed ignoring her in favor of the fridge, which he pulled a covered dish of some kind of stew out of, dipping his finger in to taste it.

"Mr. Holmes," her voice came sharp as a whipcrack and the wolf still subsiding in his veins perked its ears at the sound of an alpha. He couldn't help it—he turned his head expectantly.

"I have a client in an hour and I need you to be fed, cleaned, and gone by then."

He would usually tell her casually to dismiss them, but the wolf was still strong, still settling down for a month of slumber and it heeded the alpha, despite his human brain's desire to ignore her completely.

"You should know better than to schedule around the full moon."

"You will be gone in half an hour."

He struggled with the wolf for a moment, the animal that wanted to expose its belly and assert its subservience to the alpha, before nodding shortly, his mouth full of lamb.

"I'll be back this afternoon. There are a few things I need to catch up on with the homeless network."

She allowed him to salvage his pride as her heels clicked out of the kitchen, a warm sizzle running up her spine. He clearly did not remember the wolf's need over the previous days, its whining and presenting itself, asking to mate. He would soon enough and when he did, he would be purchasing a new sitting room rug.


	2. Bites

Bites

When he woke, he was human again, though sore and naked as usual. What concerned him was that Irene Adler was standing over the kitchen sink washing a large amount of blood off of her arm, which had a nasty jagged gash torn in it from her elbow to mid-forearm. What concerned him more was the blood he tasted and the abundance of it on his hands and feet.

_Oh God, he thought, I've bitten her._

"Irene," he croaked, and felt a sharp pain as he inhaled.

_Cracked ribs-two of them, perhaps one fully broken. Lungs undamaged, probable bruising of the chest._

She glanced at him as she pressed gauze onto the tear in her skin, still leaking blood, and began wrapping it, one-handed. He stood to help her and hesitated, not wanting to touch the woman he had potentially poisoned with his disease.

"Irene, did I—"

"Yes, a hand would be useful."

Jerkily, he walked forward and held the bandage in place as they passed the bandage roll back and forth around her arm silently, wrapping up the gash. Ever since he had been bitten, had found himself in Irene Adler's home, had woken up covered in blood and mud and everything in between, he worried about this day. One day, the wolf would take over. One day, the wolf would see Irene as not an alpha or a kindred spirit, but as a human and as prey. It seemed that day had come.


	3. Beginnings

Beginnings—Werewolf AU

The first time he changes, it is painful beyond belief and when he awakens three days later covered in scratches and mud, he hopes it was all a dream.

It wasn't.

The alley is cold and he is naked-why is he naked? There are no track marks on his arms from a fresh high, no trace evidence of hallucinogens. Memories flood him moments later-strange and different from the sharp films he has stored neatly in his mind palace. These memories are painted with the senses-smell and taste and an instinct he is utterly unfamiliar with. It cannot have been real. It simply cannot have been. It's absurd, it's mad and he refuses to entertain it. He returns to his hunt for Moriarty's web, tracking down each connection.

But it happens again. It happens in a blur he awakens from, again naked and again in an alleyway. Impossible. Muscles he rarely used ache-his whole body aches with a heavy exhaustion. Werewolves are creatures of legend and certainly not of fact.

By the third month, he believes. He pays a good deal of money to be locked in the basement for three days with ample food and water, undisturbed. No windows. One door, steel, bolted and barred. He remembers this time, keeping a bit of his human self in the back of his mind, not unlike the 'sober' voice lingering in the backs of the drunken minds of ordinary people.

Changing _hurts_. Muscles stretch and twist, bones dislocate and relocate, things grow and shrink, altering his form from human to wolf. Hair thickens, lengthens, bursts forth with an itching burning sensation from his no longer human skin. He cannot control the wolf, but he can observe. Observe he does. The beast is strange and powerful and fascinating. It wants to hunt, and though the walls of the basement contain him adequately, it does not stop relentless pacing, snarling at the door, scratching on the cement walls. It does not stop the wolf from letting out a long low howl over and over through what felt like over a day, seeking a way out of the cage.

By month four he is overconfident and lets the wolf prowl, observing, trying to control the beast from the back of its mind. He is only partially successful. Things are going well, better than well when-there. Ears pointed forward, nose to the ground, the wolf rushing to overpower his fragile hold on the body now covered in fur, he catches the scent. Her scent. Casimir and vanilla and sex and a million other things, the wolf knows her. It smells her and an instinct deeper than he can control comes over him.

_Pack_.

Regardless if he is wolf or man, they are cut from the same cloth. She is kindred, regardless of the lack of beast in her veins. Even the great Sherlock Holmes is not strong enough to overpower the wolf as it catches the scent of one of its kind.

This is how he ends up in Irene Adler's home with a bullet in his shoulder, waking up naked as usual and irritated beyond belief.


End file.
